#8 Teach an “interactive ride” where you divide the class into teams and have them work together. Get creative and don’t let a small or scattered class dampen your enthusiasm for completing this challenge. If your class is normally spread out around the room, this could be a great excuse to bring everyone closer together before the start of class. How did I do? I loved this challenge, because I’ve never really created a profile like this before. I headed over the to Profile Forum on Pedal-On for some inspiration and modified a “Chase” profile that I found there. The details are below along with the playlist that I used. It was a fun class and definitely made me want to do more like it in the future. I also combined this challenge with Challenge #9 (see below) and spent a good deal of time off the bike to coach this one.

#9 Spend 20% (10 or 15 minutes) of your next class off the bike; what is your #1 take away from this experience? This could be easily combined with challenge #8 🙂 How did I do? This was a tough one for me, but since my main goal for this entire 28 days is to get off the bike more, it was something I just needed to jump into. Since I was teaching the Interactive Chase Profile, it was actually easy to get off the bike to coach. Each side of the room was doing something different, so I spent some time both on and off the bike working with both groups. On a side note, an instructor that used to work at my gym would spend a lot of his time off the bike and members often told me that this made them uncomfortable. I believe the uncomfortable part came from him touching the handlebars, sometimes touching the members hands or shoulders and even turning gear for them! So I feel like my job of getting off the bike has been made even more difficult because many members didn’t appreciate that in the past. I did assure members that I would be getting off the bike to coach, but that I would never touch them, their bike or their gear. This seemed to put them (and me) more at ease and everyone was happy with it. Was I completely comfortable? Nope. I definitely feel more comfortable on the bike, but I will continue to get off the bike here and there during class to check on new members and help with form and coaching.

#10 Put on your reporter’s hat and interview a participant about their fitness goals and objectives. Find and ask someone in your class to meet with you one-on-one, away from the studio if possible. Better to select someone who you’ve never engaged with, beyond the normal niceties in your class. Your goal is to learn as much as you can about their “fitness life”. This isn’t their opinion of you or your class, but rather to learn as much about their personal fitness story as possible. Interviewing is about asking open ended questions and then listening fully to their answers. How did I do? I really enjoyed this challenge! I love helping people work toward their goals. This is part of why I love Indoor Cycling. It’s such a great feeling when people tell you how your class has changed them somehow. But I’ve never really asked anyone to share their goals at the beginning of their journey. I interviewed a woman from class that has just started to get back into the flow of working out after taking some time off this summer. She had recently lost a good deal of weight and has regained back some of it, so her goal is to lose the weight again. She takes several classes at our gym, but she said that Cycling is her favorite, because of the calorie burn. She mentioned that cycling classes always help her to lose the most weight. As far as her overall experience with the facility, she is quite pleased with all that is offered to her, but she mentioned that she was disappointed with the child watch hours not always matching up with the classes she likes to take. If you remember last week’s challenge, I’ve already tackled that one! I was able to get child watch extended for one of my classes, but I’m hoping they will look into the schedule and offer it for all classes in the future. I’m happy that this participant took the time to sit and talk with me about her fitness story and her goals, and I am invested in helping her achieve them. I hope to do more of this with members in the future!

#11 Reach out to another challenge participant and share your latest playlist and profile with them. Ask for critique and feedback. Share what was the best piece of advice you received from them? How did I do? Ok, this may be the easy way out, but I’m reaching out to anyone that is participating in the challenge that would like to critique my profile here on the blog. Please leave your comments below. 🙂 I promise to share what I learned next week. 😉 I was asked by another challenge participant to critique her profile earlier in the week. It was awesome and I will definitely be stealing it. 🙂

#12 It’s time to take another cycling class! Participate in a different IC class taught by an instructor whose class you’ve never taken before; share 1 thing you’ve learned from them in comments. How did I do? Not so well (again). As I mentioned last week, time constraints (I have a full time job teaching Kindergarten, people. Those little kids poop me out!) and the fact that I teach in a very small gym with just a few instructors/classes are keeping me from completing this one. I promise to take a trip to another facility soon! 🙂

#13 Reach Out to Your Teacher Week: contact the Master Instructor/Trainer who trained you when you first got certified and say THANK YOU. It could be more meaningful if you told them about something specific you remember from the training. Share a few words about them with this group. How did I do? Well, not so great on this one either. The instructor that got me started is no longer teaching and has moved on. I honestly would not know how to get in touch. I am happy to report that I pretty much thanked him every chance I got while he was still working at my gym. He got me started doing something I love doing and I am forever grateful for that. 🙂

#14 Find and use a new “tool” for your next IC class. Could be anything that enhances what you do; new music/class building app, music resource, video hookup, Facebook group to connect to your class, suggestions jar, settings box for new students, etc. Preferably something you’ve been afraid to try or have avoided in the past. How did I do? The tool that I used (created) is one that involves an RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) scale. How did I do?The bikes I use don’t have meters, so I’ve always tried to let members know how they should be feeling during a particular point in the profile using verbal cues. After doing some research and combining ideas from different instructors on one of the Facebook Cycling groups that I frequent, I came up with this visual for my participants to refer to during class. I like that it only has four levels. Any more than that seemed like too much to me. It really helps with my talkers too, because if I tell you you are on a level four then you should definitely NOT be talking to your neighbor! Here’s a screen shot of the visual:

How did I do overall? I’m giving myself a B- this week. Since I still have not completed the ‘take another class’ challenge and I was not able to get in touch with my mentor. I definitely rocked the other challenges though. Thanks again Lena and John at ICI-PRO for another fun week! Bring on the other half of the challenges!!

Here is the profile and playlist for my Interactive Chase Profile (see challenge #1) This is a 45 minute class. You could add one or two more intervals for an hour class.

Sinner: Warm up in the saddle

*During this ride, divide the class evenly into two groups.

There are seven intervals, each followed by a recovery.

Interval 1: (Good Feeling-4:00)

Group 1: Seated climb (2:00)

Group 2: Standing climb (2:00)

Group 1: Standing climb (2:00)

Group 2: Seated climb (2:00)

Recover: (Who Won? 1:02)Interval 2: (Animals-5:00)

Group 1: Seated climb (2:30)

Group 2: Jumps on a Hill (2:30)

Group 1: Jumps on a Hill (2:30)

Group 2: Seated climb (2:30

Recover: (It’s Over 1:03)

Interval 3: (Breakin’ a Sweat-5:00)

*30 second seated accelerations followed by 30 second recoveries (5 accelerations in all). Alternating groups, group 1 starts.

Recover: (Solitaire 1:00)

Interval 4: (Ten Feet Tall 6:00)

Group 1: Seated Climb (3:00)

Group 2: Standing Climb (3:00)

Group 1: Standing Climb (3:00)

Group 2: Seated Climb (3:00)

Recover: (Training Day-1:04)

Interval 5: (Titanium 4:00)

Group 1: Seated Flat (2:00)

Group 2: Seated Fast Flat (2:00)

Group 1: Seated Fast Flat (2:00)

Group 2: Seated Flat (2:00)

Recover: (Malliout Vert 1:10)

Interval 6: (Survival 4:00)

Group 1: Seated Flat (1:00)

Group 2: Standing Flat (1:00)
**Continue to alternate groups Seated and standing flat. We had an extra 20 seconds or so at the end so I had both groups stand and push out of the saddle at the end of the song. The lyrics are great for this particular profile!

First, how you manage to work full time, come up with class ideas, and then post all of this to your blog is mind-boggling to me. You are amazing!

I love your Zone ideas – I am in the same situation, as we don’t have an meters on our bikes. We talk about this a lot – one drill we’ll do is a talk test, where I have them talk to their neighbors as we go, so they can actually see exactly where they are. I like the visual cues, though.